DDI, the VTT, and an Untapped Market--People Like Me

[Agamon]

I feel exactly the opposite. 4e's a great beer and pretzels game to play around the table with friends, but it'd be kinda dull online. I tried an online game with 3e, Fantasy Grounds and Skype and it died a quick death. My favorite online games have been PbP with a lot of plot and characterization and the less fighting, the better (so, not D&D).

 

[Hussar]

For the novelty of it, I completely agree with Joe here.

I think there is a HUGE market for this sort of thing. It already exists, so, it has to be at least somewhat viable. OpenRPG, pretty much any night of the week, will have a few games being run as one shots. Mostly D&D, but also some others from time to time.

A 4e VTT that is geared specifically to 4e? That's something that I think would work extremely well. Those who want long term campaigns can do so, and those who just want some one shots get to play too. Everyone wins.

Something I cannot fathom, for the life of me, is why 3pp aren't jumping on this. You take something like Maptools, with a large community of very helpful people, and design a whole suite of plugins and macros to run your game - Vampire, M&M, D&D, Pathfinder, whatever (some of which are already done) - and then you go back to your forums and post that you are starting an online initiative. The developers the host resources for games and help out. Once you build that community, it becomes pretty much self sustaining.

Now you can reach all those people who would like to play your game, but, because of geography or personal scheduling issues, can't.

There must be some part of the equation I'm missing, because this just seems like a huge benefit for smaller press games.

 

[joethelawyer]

For the novelty of it, I completely agree with Joe here.

Failed the save huh?

Taking over ENWorld and getting XP---one Charm Spell at a time.

 

[S'mon]

I feel exactly the opposite. 4e's a great beer and pretzels game to play around the table with friends, but it'd be kinda dull online. I tried an online game with 3e, Fantasy Grounds and Skype and it died a quick death. My favorite online games have been PbP with a lot of plot and characterization and the less fighting, the better (so, not D&D).

The games I run online use a chatroom (at Dragonsfoot), automated dice roller, and simple rules (C&C or Labyrinth Lord); no map-based combat. I agree that 3e and 4e are not well suited to running online in the traditional sense. But 4e ought IMO to be good with automated systems to resolve actions. The fun I had in 4e was deciding when & how to use my powers for maximum effect. Eg a villain whacked my Fighter with a mace that meant I could only take 1 action, then retreated while his warriors blocked me. Against the protests of my group I charged him (taking 21 damage in opportunity attacks, ouch), hit him, spent an AP, used my Daily to Brutal Strike him at +3, and killed the sucker. An online system that supported that kind of decision-making but speeded up play would be good.

 

[Umbran]

Given WOTC's track record with technology, they ought to let Blizzard do it and just get royalties from it.

Blizzard puts out good products, but let's be honest, they aren't any better with getting things out promptly than Wizards. Diablo III has been in development since 2005! It only got demoed in 2008, and now it is 2009 and they still haven't announced a release date. It was similar for their other products.

If you are willing to wait until the far end of forever for an awesome product, go with Blizzard. If you actually want it before your kids get out of high school, you probably need another development shop.

 

[malraux]

I'd probably pay 10 bucks a month for it. I don't care who meets the demand, as long as it is met. Given WOTC's track record with technology, they ought to let Blizzard do it and just get royalties from it. I've downloaded maptools, but I can't make heads or tails of it. They ought to put out a DM version of maptools, and a players version. All I want to do is login, choose wizard, pick my spells, join the adventure and play. I want the interface to be no more complicated than the old Temple of Elemental Evil game put out by Atari, which I also still play once in a while.

Now that I think about it, I wish they would ust use TOEE as a base and do what I was saying with the Pathfinder/3.x systems---put out interactive dungeon crawls with it.

We can dream, right?

I was apparently unclear. Why doesn't World of Warcraft, played on an RP heavy server, fill that need? Its priced at about your price point, gives a pretty decent graphical experience, allows pickup games as you describe, etc. I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I'm trying to figure out how Wizards can compete successfully in this arena. Is it just that you want a turn based game? Or user created content?

 

[Hawke]

Is it just that you want a turn based game? Or user created content?

Both.

I want to play the types of scenarios I want to... I don't want to wonder around for hours traveling or do quests I'm not interested in. WoW is great and it works fantastic for people, but I'm not interested in that anymore. I want to play in a world that I feel like I can make some changes, that I can be a hero and shape the future.

MapTool works great for now... and the system agnostic factor is really good for those that play SW or nWoD or whatever. I think that was always the problem with GameTable - wotc could have the monopoly of rules-integrated gameplay (that could be turned off for houseruled stuff too) but I think they initially made a choice not to do that.

Ideally I think a retail package of essentially a 4E semi-automated VTT with some easy "story packaging" elements - even if it's just light RP would be a fun game for people to pick up and play through... and DDI allowed you extra content and matchmaking and such for people to run their campaigns or do pick-up delves or whatever. ::shrug::

 

[Mark]

(. . .) World of Warcraft, played on an RP heavy server (. . .)

Can you detail this more clearly?

 

[malraux]

Can you detail this more clearly?

Well, I don't actually play WoW, but from those who do: Instead of everyone being in the same realm, WoW has several different copies of the same world each on its own server. One of the advantages of this is allowing multiple different "house rules" like PvP fighting. A specific sort of rule is role playing based servers, where you speak in character, can't be named Sir Pwnsalot, etc. That is about the extent of my knowledge, but perhaps the wowwiki can be more informative. But from an outside perspective, a RP based WoW server would certainly be a possible substitute for something like a WotC produced VTT.

 

[Mark]

Well, I don't actually play WoW, but from those who do: Instead of everyone being in the same realm, WoW has several different copies of the same world each on its own server. One of the advantages of this is allowing multiple different "house rules" like PvP fighting. A specific sort of rule is role playing based servers, where you speak in character, can't be named Sir Pwnsalot, etc. That is about the extent of my knowledge, but perhaps the wowwiki can be more informative. But from an outside perspective, a RP based WoW server would certainly be a possible substitute for something like a WotC produced VTT.

It's unfortunate that you are not directly familiar. I do understand the premise but was hoping someone who is a tabletop gamer could give a pro/con report of how such a thing stacks up compared to actual tabletop gaming, which one would expect VTT usage to cleave as closely to as the tech allows.